Walking in San Francisco should never involve these 15 things

By Brandon M. Mercer

photo-11886710.138188 - |ucfirst

1. SLOW WALKERS MOVE RIGHT

It's sort of the universal rule of traffic in the western world, or wherever we drive on the right side. Faster traffic passes on the left. If you're plodding along, get out of the way. Slow walkers, we get that you're oblivious to your fellow pedestrians. Just try to be oblivious on the right side of the narrower sidewalks, so we faster people can purposefully race past you with our sanctimonious power walks.

How many thousands of us have missed our BART train because some oaf with a suitcase parked his rump on the left side of the escalator, and we couldn't get around him and the courteous people on the right as we heard the boarding announcement? Notice these folks on the escalator at Powell Street, all nicely lined up on the right side. Kudos! (March 9th, 2016)

4. GET OFF THE PHONE (AND BY PHONE, WE MEAN TEXTING, EMAILING,...photo-9757645.138188 - |ucfirst

5. READING? REALLY?

If you're so engrossed in a book that you can't stop reading while walking, while we worry for your priorities and your safety, hey, power to you for getting some quality reading done on your walking commute.

(Yeah, we get that we're celebrating an annoying walker, but seriously, there's only a few of these rare bookworms out there, so they're hardly inconveniencing anyone. If you see them, just take a photo of these book-walkers in their native habitat, and do your own rant on Facebook (NOT while walking)).

8. DO NOT HANG TEN OFF THE CURB. Pretty serious too. When big...photo-9757680.138188 - |ucfirst

9. SERIOUSLY, DO NOT HANG TEN

Can you believe how far that bus came over the sidewalk?! The pedestrians here actually had to take two steps back as the driver completed this turn from 5th Street onto eastbound Mission across from The Chronicle / SFGATE building.

Remember high school geometry? Those long rectangular buses cut into that nice round corner. The center of the vehicle may come WAY over to where you are standing, Mr. Hang Ten.

9. SERIOUSLY, DO NOT HANG TEN Can you believe how far that bus...photo-9757715.138188 - |ucfirst

10. DOG WALKERS, DON'T TRIP FOLKS WITH YOUR LEASHES

We love your dogs. We're a dog-friendly city. And, we love that you have them on a leash! Just be aware that if you're slow-walking on the left, and your dog is sniffing everything in sight on the right, that leash is not a fun little game of jump rope for us.

We don't like waiting for you to figure this out. If your dog is friskier than you, walk behind your pooch, so the leash doesn't trip us up as we stride past you, staring at our iPhones or reading.

12. NO CROP DUSTING IN CROWDS If you haven't heard that...photo-9757754.138188 - |ucfirst

13. DON'T BOB AND WEAVE

You're not Marshawn Lynch. Quit ducking left and right. Or worse, slowly meandering right and left. When we're trying to walk around you, and you keep weaving, we step on your heels, and then you give us dirty looks. Let's avoid that. Unless you're this guy. Then, you just bob and weave all you want, big fella!

With the exception of vomiting, there's no more disgusting sound in humankind than someone summoning a deep, guttural cough, hearing them use air to propel that wad of phlegm up their gullet, and then hearing them hock that massive loogie through the air.

The only thing more disgusting is when their bodily fluids land on you as you power walk up to the left. Looking before you spit, people.

And seriously, if you have that much phlegm, maybe stop doing number 11?